Our urine test for blood clots published in ACS Nano

Summary: Thrombin is a serine protease that plays a critical role in the formation of obstructive blood clots, or thrombosis, that is a life-threatening condition associated with numerous diseases such as atherosclerosis and stroke. To detect thrombosis in living animals, we design nanoparticles to sense the activity of thrombin by producing a signal in urine for detection using standard clinical methods. We show that signals in urine differentiate between healthy and thrombotic states and correlate closely with the aggregate burden of blood clots formed in the lungs. Our results demonstrate that synthetic biomarkers can be engineered to sense vascular diseases from urine and may allow applications in point-of-care diagnostics.

Nanoparticles that sense thrombin activity as synthetic urinary biomarkers of thrombosis, ACS Nano